“Spike or Derrick will play at the point, Nik or Caris will play at the two, Glenn or Zak will be at the three, and at the other three it will be Jordan or Glenn. Jon’s played real well, too. Jon’s going to get a great chance.”

"The other three." A door opened, and Michigan became the first team to go 1 2 3 3 5, because it was good PR. In fairness to Beilein, the roles of the 3 and 4 in his system are not particularly different, especially when you've got a guy like Robinson.

Also, please be true:

“Glenn is one of our top assist guys in all the scrimmages thus far. A lot of times we’ll just let them play, and allow them to play to the vision and strengths that they have,” Beilein said. “He’s got an ability to play where he can see open men really quickly. You see a lot of kids who, for some reason, while they’re athletic, don’t have the same feel for the game in crowds.”

Shot creation from Robinson would be enormous. Freshman to sophomore leaps are possible at a couple of different positions from players who were already pretty damn good last time out.

A SHORT LIST OF THINGS TO KEEP AN EYE ON

Does Nik Stauskas rip an arm off a Concordia player, use it to shoot a three pointer, and then bite a chunk out of it as he leaves the floor?

Well, that's not good. By the time I got home from Saturday's hockey game it was halftime in the PSU-OSU game and the score was 42-7. That's some pretty un-swell boding right there. By the end, the Ohio State offense had eviscerated Penn State in unprecedented ways:

•Ohio State racked up 686 yards of total offense against Penn State, a new high for the Buckeyes against a Big Ten defense and a new low for the Nittany Lions in the 127-year history of the program. The final score, 63–14, made it the most lopsided defeat Penn State has endured since Nov. 25, 1899, in a 64–5 loss to the Duquesne Athletic Club, which was also the last time Penn State allowed 60 points. In the intervening 114 years, only two other opponents scored 50 points against Penn State: West Virginia in October 1988, and Navy in October 1944.

I was curious and grabbed a torrent of that event. OSU's line blew that 282 pound defensive tackle who occasionally featured against Michigan off the line regularly, took all manner of perimeter screens when presented the opportunity (including, oddly, a third and one conversion and a second and one conversion), and used Hyde as a punishing alternative to Braxton Miller—the usual. I guess they've kind of struggled in their other league games? Yeah.

Also alarming was Michigan State's Illinois-aided demolition of Illinois:

• Michigan State QB Connor Cook was 15-of-16 for 208 yards and three touchdowns against Illinois, setting a school record for pass efficiency (264.8) in a 42–3 rout. After a slow start, the Spartan offense as a whole converted 14 of 16 third-down attempts – including a kneel-down to end the game – the best single-game rate by any team this season, and scored touchdowns on six consecutive possessions before killing the clock.

One of those touchdown drives featured an Illinois player certain to intercept not only not doing that but batting the ball directly to a Michigan State player for a touchdown. That put MSU up 14-3 in a half featuring that and a goal line stand for MSU at the one, turning a potential tie into a lead insurmountable and eventually a laughable blowout.

On the bright side, Minnesota ran for almost 300 yards in a relatively easy win over Nebraska. Football is weird. That's the hope now, anyway.

At least this is the last year we have to talk about this. Fresno State and Northern Illinois are currently undefeated and on track to finish higher than the champion of the Large America conference, which means whichever finishes higher in the final standings will get the honor of being annihilated in a BCS Game. This is the BCS's own fault, because rough and tough football coaches mewled about how it was mean when that man scored another touchdown:

One of the reasons the Bulldogs and Huskies are in such solid position, surprisingly, is their good standing in the computer polls, where both rank in the top 15 despite the computers' alleged emphasis on strength of schedule. (NIU's best win is over Iowa, by three points; the crown jewel in Fresno's resumé is either a one-point win over Rutgers, in overtime, or a one-point win over Boise State.) In fact, even the machines don't really know what to do with them. In Jeff Sagarin's rankings, for example, his "real" rankings – which include margin of victory – list both NIU and Fresno as mediocrities at No. 51 and No. 52, respectively, nowhere near the threshold for a BCS game; in the version Sagarin submits to the BCS, though, which excludes margin of victory, the same teams come in at No. 3 and No. 14.

The BCS has been one eyerolling compromise after another. Even if the playoff committee was Condoleeza Rice and 14 animals representing the diversity of American agriculture the output would be less of a steaming pile than the soon-to-be late, extraordinarily unlamented BCS.

Math is just a tool, and for two decades the people in charge of college football took the safety off of Richard Billingsley and pointed him at their face, then sawed-off the other computer rankings and pointed them at their family. We're better off without it if it's going to be used like that: by morons.

Brian - if you ever had the time or inclination to UFR a game not involving Michigan I would highly recommend doing the PSU/OSU contest if you really want to drive yourself crazy. Penn State lined up, for the most part, in the same base defense they used against us but instead of trying to hammer away at the middle, Ohio ran about 15 bubble screens in the first half to great success and THEN pounded Hyde into the middle when PSU was spread out to defend it.

They also ran almost exclusively out of the shotgun or pistol, seldom if ever huddled and, when getting the ball up 35-7 on their own 35 with less than a minute to play they went for the throat and scored AGAIN before half to truly put the game away.

In short they did everything we should've done but refused to do against PSU. It was painful but enlightening.

"doesn't scare me half as much as just how much better they are at preparation." If you believe that comment you SHOULD be scared. It means even if we have equal talent they will out coach us. And we dont have even talent right now. And if your comment is true, we should all be scared because that means with an equal amount of resources we are getting cheated in our coaching versus our main rival. I am not saying it is true but if it is, we have bigger issues than interior linemen.

I hope that for whatever reason I understand what Meyer wants to do more than I understand what Borges wants to do, but Meyer's offense sure makes more sense to me. OSU makes you cover the entire field *and* hits you in the mouth with Hyde and its O-line.

The "We are .." cheer started at Penn State in the late 1970s ----- and it was more inspired by OSU (ack!!) than anything else. See the link below.

That said, the 1946 Miami game and de-segregating the Cotton Bowl in 1948 certainly aren't mythology --- they're both good parts of Penn State's (and college football's) history, and they're both stories worth telling.

There is no way that Fresno or NI will ever be included. And that is just. Just as NI never should have been allowed to go to a BCS game last year. Also a good argument for not exoanding the number of teams.

"We can't overestimate the value of computers: yes they are great for playing games and forwarding funny emails, but real business is done on paper. Write that down."

Haha, that's exactly how I read it until I saw your post. I was actually trying to think how MSU could have converted on a kneel down. I'm too unduly influenced by Stafford's spike TD on Sunday, I guess.

I did not watch the Ohio State-Penn State game, but I read afterwards that Meyer challenged a spot on a PSU first down late in the game when Ohio was leading by a huge margin already. OK, I suppose he had the right to do that, but it reminded me of Woody going for two against Michigan in 1968 when he was up 5 TDs. That came back to bite him in the ass the next year. I certainly hope Penn State remembers Urbs running up the score and making chickenshit challenges when the Bucks mosey into Happy Valley next year. It would be a fitting example of those who do not learn from history having to repeat it.

Penn State had gone for it on fourth down at the OSU 25, and the officials pretty obviously screwed up the spot. Meyer had the choice of either saying "eh, go ahead and have your first down and keep your drive going," or "screw that, we're taking the ball back." He chose the latter. I would hope most coaches would as well.

RE: The BCS: the American Conference (or whatever the hell the corpse of the Big East is called) is still an auto-bid conference, and it's because they're so crappy that we are possibly (probably?) going to see Central Florida, Northern Illinois, and Fresno State in BCS games this winter.

Counterpoint: if I could just pay $5 for ESPN, $5 for BTN, $1 each for Discovery, HGTV, Nick and Cartoon Network, and pull down OTA broadcast on HDTV I would save a boatload on my cable bill each month.

My cable bill is 6x expensive because to the 100's of other crappy channels I don't watch and have to pay for because I want to watch sports real time.

The sooner they bust the bundle and we can all buy ala cart the better.

Too true! The DirecTV idiot who said let sports fans pay for sports didn't have the sense to do the reverse calculus u just did: if my TV ONLY got all those sports channels, HBO, AMC, toss in Cartoon Network to keep my kid happy, I'd be good. Better toss in Bravo & Food for the wife... what are we up to $25?
Take that!